Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System - Chapter 710 - 710: Challenges, Little Tiger girl version (part 3)

At this point this should be a familiar scene for you, a barrier of quite an incredibly high toughness is what was blocking the little tiger girl from continuing the fight, that is indeed the case.

However, this barrier was completely indetectable, outside of direct contact and that is a lot to say considering that Dana’s senses when it comes to energy, are quite sharp.

‘It’s not just plain hidden to the sight, I couldn’t detect it at all until I was just a couple of centimeters away from clashing with that, but… I’m not the same as before’, thought the little tiger girl as a sharp light flashed through her eyes.

“Lightning Piercing Eyes”, lightning energy gathered on Dana’s eyes, before her originally pale blue irises gained a bright yellow tone.

And in case you wonder, this technique that the little tiger girl obtained was inspired in how reliable Daimon’s eyes seemed to her, needless to say but Dana was more than amazed at the fact that he didn’t need to enhance them with energy to obtain the kind monstrous sight he has.

“Mm, I knew there was something hidden there”, mumbled the little tiger girl as she saw the area ahead of her, through the eye technique she just used.

Unlike before when Dana could only more or less guess what was happening thanks to her senses, with her eyes as they were right now, she could see the reason behind her attack being blocked.

There was an invisible barrier around the panther, however it wasn’t present in the ground, but “below” of it, as in the barrier was inside of the panther’s shadow.

And that wasn’t all, the scene in front of the little tiger girl’s eyes was that of another panther surrounded by a barrier, the direction was inverted when compared to the panther in front of Dana though, since she was seeing into the shadow world.

It was quite the interesting variation when compared to the other barriers we have seen before, this one manifested inside of the panther’s shadow which is why despite her instincts, Dana required almost direct contact with the barrier to detect its existence, because it literally wasn’t there.

And here there was another difference between the panther’s shadow affinity and the undead head maid’s one, the same area of the barrier inside the shadow world, affected the outside world, thus protecting the panther even if there was “nothing” there.

In other words, the interaction between the outside world and the shadow world to which the panther has access to, appears to be much more direct.

‘I chose the first layer of the shadow world out of need, even after knowing that it wouldn’t boost my stealth but interference power instead… but still how can a mere eye technique allow someone that has no affinity with darkness at all to see through it’, inwardly cursed the panther.

At first, the capacity to interfere with the outside world from within the shadow world like the panther did, might sound as an absolute advantage over the undead head maid’s shadow affinity, but that’s not the case, to begin with, besides Daimon no one has been able to see into the shadow world where Rita resides.

The undead head maid can also store not only things but even living beings in the shadow world she has access to and for that same reason, Rita can use not only the shadows of objects, but also of other people, besides her own and Daimon’s of course, as she sees fit, surveillance, espionage, assassination, you name it and the undead head maid can do it without revealing her existence, so no one can trace her back to Daimon.

As for the panther, the little tiger girl with an eye spell could see through it, on the other hand, the ability to affect the outside world by changing things in the shadow one sounds amazing, but it doesn’t work in anything that is not tied to the user and it also consumes quite a large amount of mana.

It does come with the nice perk of being able to pull one or two fast ones on the enemy, because even if short-lived, the power of any spell projected from the shadow world on the outside world, greatly increases, it was a boosting effect of some sort, one that didn’t require the panther to do anything besides casting her spell inside the shadow world.

‘Whatever, even when others mocked my choice, I don’t regret it!’, roared the panther as she shouted.

“Perfect, Black Shadow Projection Devil Altar!”, as you can see, there was something different in the name of the spell used by the panther when compared to the previous enemies.

Well, to be more accurate the panther was just “honest”, all the altar spells we have seen before should have included the word “Incomplete” before their names, but of course under Marcus’s orders they put a lot of effort into shortening that part out of the chant for the spell.

Which might sound like a frivolous thing to do, instead of trying to reach the “perfect” level of their respective altar spells, but this time there is actually a good reason behind of such an instruction, and that is the fact that it is insanely hard to train an altar spell to make it improve, since they have to pay a price every time, they used it.

Also, using the word “incomplete” before the name of the spell, would give away the flawed state of the spell to the enemy, amusingly enough this instruction was the first advice that Lezabel has given to Marcus without him being mocked or threatened by her, ever.

Anyway, the panther was the only one among Marcus’s subordinates that was exempted from the previous, the reason being the same as to why Marcus took her in, despite she lacking in some aspects when compared to other blood specters, besides her rare affinity, which is that she was innately compatible with “Devil Mana”.

So unlike others, Marcus not only could give the panther some of his mana without it taking a toll in the panther, but also while the panther couldn’t produce it out of nowhere by herself unlike Marcus, she could store it in the shadow of her body and make it “grow” there, so Marcus gave her the task of being his exclusive mana battery, and a portion of the excess produced was given to the panther as a reward.

Thanks to that, she could train with her altar spell continuously and perfect it in a relatively short amount of time.

Besides the change in the name, the altar itself was also quite different, it was still made out of black bones but instead of a skull or a skeleton at the center of its frontal part, there lied the head of a lion roaring, carved in some kind of black ore.

“Black Shadow Projection Sacrifice”.

Under the little tiger girl’s interested gaze, a black ominous mana different than the shadow mana of the panther, emerged from the “ground”, as in it was coming from within the shadow world, to then gather behind the panther and take the shape of a twenty-meter sized lioness.

The eyes of the carved lion head on the altar, lit up in black flames and the projected shadow lioness was devoured by the mouth of the lion head.

“Roar!!!”, a thunder like roar came out from the shadow world, making the air in the outside world tremble for a couple of seconds as it released a black stream that was absorbed by the duplicate of the panther in the shadow world.

The result was reflected in the outside world, by the panther’s body releasing black mist as it grew, it’s worth mentioning that the panther, despite being a blood specter, was not that bigger than what an actual panther would be, barely reaching two meters of height.

But now… the panther’s heigh had quadrupled, reaching a total of eight meters, which is still a “small” size, but that’s because the panther’s focus is stealth and agility, on the other hand she stopped looking like a panther, just like the shadow projected by her within the shadow world, she was basically a black lioness now.

And here one might think that Dana would show extra wariness, since she has properly learned real life “fighting experience” from both Arianna and Daimon, but for a change that well-behaved little tiger girl, instead had a rather “wild” light glowing in her eyes as she looked at her opponent.

“Hssssss!”, bright yellow lightning arcs started crackling around Dana’s body as she waited for the barrier within the shadow world to disperse, which would mark the restart of the fight.

The panther was the same though, originally her animosity towards Dana originated on the fact that she was given instructions of targeting everyone but Dana for assassination, and if impossible to damage her as little as possible.

But now, after assuming this form, her instincts were urging her to fight and defeat the little tiger girl, not like the panther, or more accurately the lioness given her current form was being controlled by the previous, but her motivation to win indeed grew further than just fulfilling Marcus’s task.

“Crack!”, unlike other barriers produced by altar spells, this one didn’t produce the slightest sound when it broke, as it resided in the shadow world, that was the sound of the ground below both Dana and the lioness shattering, as they tensed their legs.

Dana could see through the shadow below the lioness, so she knew when the barrier started fading, coincidentally the lioness also prepared to charge at the same time as the little tiger girl.

The very second the barrier was gone, those two turned into yellow and black flashes, respectively, just their charge was enough to create a shockwave, however the sound of the explosion didn’t appear yet.

“Booooom!”, just as those two’s claws clashed, the sound produced by the previous explosion, came in, followed by the sound of metals colliding.

“Clang!”, from up-close the lioness could see the slight frown that had appeared on the little tiger girl’s face as she realized that her claws… couldn’t leave even the slightest scratch on the lioness’s ones unlike before.

Dana’s surprise is understandable, despite the changes that the panther went through, her realm didn’t change in the slightest, she was still at the early stage of the Arch rank, only her raw strength had increased, so she was now balanced in every aspect, which might sound underwhelming, on the other hand, it is also true that the panther basically activated her altar spell without a sacrifice.

In fact, she used more mana to cast it from the shadow world, than to activate the spell by itself and the “sacrifice” didn’t take anything from her as well, so there were no downsides to it.

‘It’s too early to be surprised!’, inwardly exclaimed the lioness as she roared.

“Black Shadow Pride!”, while still clashing with Dana, black shadow mana poured out of the lioness’s body, the mass of mana divided itself into five parts, each part then took the shape of the lioness.

And in case you think that the sole difference between this spell and the mirage one which the lioness used before, is the extra duplicate, you ought to see how Dana’s frown deepened as three of the copies of the lioness spread in different directions.

However, the little tiger girl couldn’t keep her eyes on the three copies of the lioness which separated from the group, because the remaining two, attacked her from the sides.

“Lightning Tiger Step”, judging the current situation disadvantageous, given her lack of information regarding the differences between this new spell and the one used by the lioness before, Dana’s legs were cladded in yellow lightning as she flashed away from the incoming attacks, which made the lioness smile to her insides.

“Black Shadow Devil Charge!”, fierce black mana exploded around the legs of the lioness, as she used a new movement spell, but that wasn’t what drew Dana’s attention, but the fact that the legs of the copies were also covered in mana, in other words… the spell was replicated in them.

“Crack!”, the lioness and her two copies shot themselves towards the little tiger girl who was about to land, they even advanced in different directions and in different ways as well, because while the real lioness charged straight head on, the other two moved from the sides and even jumped through some of the threes, in order to make their path hard to see through.

And so, the very moment the real lioness arrived in front of Dana, the other two also did their moves, one descended from above while the other charged from behind.

“Humph”, seeing the three pairs of claws coming her way, Dana softly snorted as she slashed her hands in opposite directions.

“Lightning Explosive Claws”, with a few words, ten slashing lights were released from the little tiger girl’s nails, just in time to be met with the claws of the three lionesses.

“Clang!”, like previously stated, the lioness’s claws were now equal to Dana’s ones, so the slashing part of the little tiger girl’s technique was blocked by the lionesses using their own claws which were cladded in black mana, resulting in the sounds of metals colliding.

“Booom!”, next the explosive effect of Dana’s technique came in, releasing the lightning energy contained in her slashes all at the same time, the energy clouds engulfed the three lionesses, forcefully separating them from the little tiger girl.

However, Dana was far from being satisfied with the result, because while the enemy was forced backwards, once the energy clouds dispelled, she saw that not only the lioness but even her copies were unscathed, in other words her technique only made them retreat but didn’t damage them at all.

What’s more, she lost track of the other three copies of the lioness, of course with a quick glance she checked the shadows of the areas where they had landed before, but they were empty, meaning that the lioness had used their previous clash as a distraction to hide her copies.

“A single tiger might have the upper hand against a lion, but it won’t stand a chance against a pride”, said the lioness to which Dana casually answered.

“It depends on what kind of tiger we are talking about”.

“Humph!”, both the little tiger girl and the lioness snorted at the same time, as they used the energy and mana they had gathered, basically at the same time.

“Black Shadow Devil Flame Barrage!”, black flames gathered in front of the mouths of the lioness and her two copies, they were compressed before exploding turning into three black streams that flew towards Dana from different directions.

Now, the little tiger girl despite having her fighting spirit gone through the roof, after seeing the new form that the panther had attained, hasn’t become reckless in the slightest.

So, originally the first thing that came to her mind was using her movement technique to bypass those attacks that actually felt dangerous for her, to then attack the enemy, however her instincts warned her that it wasn’t going to work.

And they were right, because the trajectory that those black flame streams followed wasn’t fixed, it was hard to notice but with her eye technique and her sharp instincts, Dana could see the attacks slightly bending to find the best path towards her, so the little tiger girl answered in kind, as in with her own brand-new technique.

“Lightning Tiger Shredding Claw!”, unlike her stapple technique, this one had the word “Tiger” added to it and the reason is simple, the yellow lightning arcs that were surrounding Dana expanded in size to then take the form of a twenty-meter tall, tiger that stood behind of Dana.

Then with the little tiger girl pointing her hand frontwards, the lightning tiger slashed its right paw sidewards, releasing a half moon slashing light, that collided against the black flame streams the next second.

“Booooom!”, as one would expect, the two types of energy fiercely clashed and tried to rip and burn each other the very second, they met, the result was that a short-lived stalemate created a sphere of energies that lasted until the balance was broken.

Next, the explosion released a rain of black flame wisps as well as bright yellow sparks in every direction, the shockwave and the energy discharge caused a tremor as the ground and everything in the vicinity was blasted away.

Naturally such a ruckus caused a giant dust veil to raise from the ground and block the sight in around a hundred meters, more than enough to cover those two, creating an opportunity for both to attack.

“Black Shadow Devil Hunt!”, from within the dust veil, the voice of the lioness made the little tiger girl’s eyes to contract like needles, she suddenly felt danger coming from every direction.

Normally she would just blast everything away, but she just used a big move so she hasn’t charged enough energy to pull something like that right away, still she has a solution for every problem in her technique repertory.

“Lightning Tail Whip”, with a lash of her tail, the little tiger girl swept the dust around her while also releasing lightning energy which revealed the origin of the danger she felt.

There were countless black “lines” that moved through the ground, rocks and trees in different directions, as they made their way towards Dana, those were shadows, it wasn’t hard for Dana to guess that the copies of the lioness were moving that way, both the three that had remained hidden since earlier and the remaining couple which had disappeared while her sight was blocked.

If it isn’t obvious by now, the lioness was no longer restricted to just jump from one shadow to another, she, or at least her copies could move through them now, of course it still was a degraded version of what Rita can do, because the lioness was creating “shadow paths” for her copies to move.

So, one could see them with the naked eye, of course to make up for it, the lioness created a whole bunch of them and her copies could come from any of them, it was a clever way to patch up the flaw of her technique.

And it also worked to make things harder for the little tiger girl, because Dana had to look into the shadow in specific to know what lied inside of it, but the paths were numerous and they changed, twisted, disappeared and then multiplied as they advanced, you could say that the lioness basically changed her spell to counter Dana.

Or at least that’s how it should have been, had the little tiger girl not changed her play as well.

“Lightning Tiger Piercing Eyes”, with a calm voice, Dana’s eyes shone in bright yellow light, before she punched downwards to her right.

Just in time for the head of one of the lioness’s copies to come out from the ground.

“Clang!”, Dana’s punch landed right on the copy’s head, sending it back into the shadows due to the impact, though the little tiger girl was sure that she didn’t do much damage to the enemy, she perfectly blocked the ambush, which made the lioness frown to her insides.